Residents of the Great Plains over the last year or so have experienced storms reminiscent of the 1930s Dust Bowl. Experts say the new storms have been brought on by a combination of historic drought, a dwindling Ogallala Aquifer underground water supply, climate change and government farm programs.Â [...]

While few people believe it could get that bad again, the new storms have some experts worried that similar conditions — if not the catastrophic environmental disaster of the 1930s — are returning to parts of Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Kansas and Colorado.Â

The most recentÂ Drought Monitor released on ThursdayÂ shows massive areas of the country still suffering under a drought, with 61.8% of the contiguous United States under moderate to severe levels of drought.Â

Weather Underground co-founder Dr. Jeff MastersÂ remarksÂ that data now show the “2012 drought the greatest U.S. drought since the Dust Bowl year of 1939.”

And the drought forecast shows 2012′s drought moving right into 2013:

“I hope we don’t talk ourselves into complacency with easy assumptions that a Dust Bowl could never happen again,”Â ReutersÂ reports Craig Cox, agriculture director forÂ Environmental Working Group, as saying. “Instead, we should do what it takes to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”